In the early 1970s, when I was working as a musician in Los Angeles, a song came on the radio that was so good that I actually pulled off the freeway, found a phone booth, and called the station to ask about it.
“We’ve been playing it for a week,” the gal admonished me. “Everybody’s playing it.”
“Well, I hadn’t heard it yet.”
“Where are you from,” she asked.
“Indiana.”
“Oh,” she laughed, “they won’t get it out there for a month.”
Welcome to California as America’s future. But is it still the Golden State? Recent events indicate otherwise.
The natural disasters are bad enough. Fires are raging in wine country and beyond, with suspected arsonists either in custody or on the run. Bishop Robert Vasa’s Santa Rosa chancery has been turned into an evacuation center. Dozens of people have died. None of them knew when they woke up that they would be meeting Jesus that day.
Then there are moral disasters. Black coals burning in the libido of powerful movie moguls. Hollywood as sewer has given way to Hollywood as brothel filled with aspiring stars serving as captive sex servants.
Now, since Socrates we’ve known that the corruption of the base appetites quickly leads to the corruption of the Libido Dominandi, the love of power. That’s the badge Augustine pinned on the City of Man, whose leader is Satan. And the blending of the loves for sex, money, and power with the desire for fame and glory (Superbia Vitae, 1 John 2:16) corrupts absolutely. Intentionally. By design.
But more sophisticated corruption also abounds. Dark embers of vile bigotry. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) has announced she will run for reelection next year. That no doubt means she intends to keep bashing Catholics from her powerful seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee until the age of 90.
Catholic judicial nominee Amy Coney Barrett can wear Feinstein’s carefully calculated barb — “The dogma lives loudly within you” — as a badge of honor; for Feinstein, it screams as an indelible stain of bigotry.
And the stain is spreading, sinking in, and killing people. So many people, in fact, that California is tired of tracking down and prosecuting perpetrators of murder-by-sex.
What?
That’s right. As of this month, in California it will no longer be a felony for a carrier of the AIDS virus intentionally to infect another person.
Oh come on! Why would anybody ever do that?
In 1991, young Kimberly Ann Bergalis testified before Congress from a wheelchair, advocating stricter limits on medical practitioners known to carry the AIDS virus. “AIDS is a terrible disease that we must take seriously. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I’m being made to suffer like this. My life has been taken away. Please enact legislation so other patients and health-care providers don’t have to go through the hell that I have. Thank you.”
Miss Bergalis had been infected by her dentist, David Acer, an active homosexual who later admitted that he had had 150 sexual partners within the past year. Nonetheless, Acer deliberately treated patients after being diagnosed with HIV. Sentiment around the Bergalis case focused on Acer’s hateful desire to avenge his own deadly infection by intentionally injecting his patients with it (five of them were later diagnosed with the same specific strain of AIDS as Acer’s).
Bergalis’ testimony was brief, her voice weak; she died later that year, on December 8, 1991. Reasonable people consider her a murder victim, but Acer was beyond earthly justice, having died in 1990.
Yes, people do deliberately “do that.” And in the logic of California’s Democrat political leadership, it shouldn’t be a felony, because if it were, active sodomites would not “seek testing.”
A wise priest once marveled how AIDS had been magically transformed from the “Gay Plague” endangering others to a “civil rights issue” that depicted those infected with AIDS as “victims,” rather than dangers to public health. In California — always ahead of the rest of us! — those “victims” are now free to infect, and kill, other “victims” under the law.

It Only Gets Worse

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad” — Prometheus: Longfellow’s Masque of Pandora.
For California, October seems to be the cruelest month. Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, has just signed the “Gender Recognition Act” to make it easier for people to change gender on state identification and birth certificates, while establishing a “nonbinary” designation.
But as Donoso Cortes once observed, Satan doesn’t like it when we coast; he wants to drive us ever deeper into the fiery brine. So Gov. Brown also signed legislation requiring California health-care workers to use a senior transgender patient’s “preferred name or pronouns”; if they “willfully and repeatedly” decline to do so, they could face punishments ranging from a fine to jail time.
How cute; the “elderly” today, tomorrow everybody. On California college campuses, it is already considered “offensive” not to call a man a woman if that’s what he wants to be called. College dorm room doors feature a card with the student’s name, hometown, major — and yes, “preferred name or pronouns.” Flub it repeatedly (“Let’s see, is she a ‘he,’ or a ‘zhe,’ or a ‘they,’ or….”) and you’re sitting by the side of the road, waiting for an appointment with the Gender Equity Officer.
While all this important stuff is being shoved down California throats, little details keep escaping attention. In Los Angeles County, home of Hollywood, the percentage of residents lacking basic prose literacy skills was 20 percent in 1992, and rose to 33 percent in 2003. If that trend has continued to the present (in fact, it has likely increased), today over half of Angelinos cannot write a simple sentence. But they’d darned well know whether you’re a “Zhey” or a “Zhe,” or it’s jail time.
How about “You-all”? Sorry, No-Go: “Cultural appropriation. Offensively Southern.”

California Bishops
To The Rescue?

On July 1, 2015, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, 45, shot and killed Katy Steinle as she walked arm-in-arm with her father along a San Francisco sidewalk. San Francisco has been a “Sanctuary City” since 1989, and Lopez Sanchez, who had been convicted of seven felonies and been deported five times, admitted he had been drawn there because of its sanctuary status.
The USCCB has ardently supported “Sanctuary Cities,” rejecting President Trump’s attempts to apprehend criminals like Lopez-Sanchez before they kill again. In fact, most American bishops encourage illegal aliens to break the law, at least tacitly.
So while San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone offered his “deepest condolences to Kathryn’s family and friends,” he insisted that “Steinle’s death should not be used as a justification to malign immigrants in the U.S. He urged local and federal officials not to ‘punish all immigrants for the transgressions of a small minority’,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
Well, on October 5, Gov. Brown signed SB 54, declaring California a sanctuary state. California Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Republican and prospective candidate for governor, criticized the legislation. “Sanctuary state policies, by their very nature, are contrary to being a nation of laws, he wrote. “As a nation of laws, we cannot pick and choose which ones we’ll obey.”
Allen then recounted facts on immigration which our bishops rarely mention. “According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, undocumented immigrants are just 3.5 percent of the U.S. population but account for 37.6 percent of federal sentences and 13.6 percent of all criminal offenders nationwide. Illegal immigrants comprise 12 percent of murder sentences, 20 percent of kidnapping sentences, and 16 percent of drug trafficking sentences. An estimated 650 unauthorized migrant criminal offenders are released into California’s communities every month in violation of transfer requests into federal custody. During its last two-and-a-half years, the Obama Administration released 86,000 illegal immigrants who committed over 231,000 crimes.”
Speaking of which, on October 17, Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, 29, an illegal alien and the subject of an ICE detainer request, was arrested on suspicion of felony arson in connection with the Santa Rosa and Sonoma County fires.
On August 23, 2017, Bishop Jaime Soto, Sacramento, president of the California Catholic Conference of Bishops, issued a statement indicating that “California bishops support SB 54.”
The California nightmare continues, and California’s Catholic bishops are in the lead. Will it become America’s nightmare as well?

Vatican City, Feb 17, 2018 / 05:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Saturday the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has reconfirmed Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, also reconfirming seven members…Continue Reading

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to the Trump administration’s 2019 federal budget proposal on Monday, the U.S. Catholic bishops are urging for a budget that shows greater concern for “‘the least of these” and warning that the U.S. “must never seek…Continue Reading

A Connecticut high school student may have to decide whether to remove a Planned Parenthood sticker on her laptop or leave her Catholic school after administrators told her to remove it, her parents said. Sophomore Kate Murray’s parents told the Greenwich Time that…Continue Reading

February 8, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The Bible’s condemnation of homosexual acts should be taken in “context” with Biblical times, Jesuit Father James Martin toldGeorgetown University students recently. Martin said as well that Catholics who support gay “marriage” should have no problem…Continue Reading

JACKSON, Mississippi, February 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A bill banning abortion on babies more than 15 weeks old passed the Mississippi state House today 79-31. House Bill 1510 would make Mississippi the state with the most pro-life laws if it…Continue Reading

Just three Democrats in the U.S. Senate supported a bill on Monday that would prohibit abortions after 20 weeks when unborn babies are capable of feeling pain. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which has strong public support from Republicans…Continue Reading

ROME, January 30, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – In an exclusive interview two weeks after issuing a profession of immutable truths about sacramental marriage, Bishop Athanasius Schneider is inviting his brother bishops around the world to join in raising a common voice…Continue Reading

As Katholisch.de, the official website of the German bishops, reports today, Cardinal Willem Eijk, the Dutch cardinal and Metropolitan Archbishop of Utrecht, requested that Pope Francis bring light into the confusion concerning the question as to how to deal with…Continue Reading

When Selena Miller, a practicing Catholic, applied to DePaul, she had no idea it was a Catholic university. Damita Meneves, another practicing Catholic, said she has met only one other Catholic student in her first year at DePaul. DePaul is…Continue Reading

His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, spoke recently with Thinking with the Church, hosted by Chris Altieri, who is also a regular contributor to Catholic World Report. Cardinal Burke responds to questions regarding the interpretation and reception of the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris…Continue Reading

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By DON FIER (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and Founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wis., graciously took time out of his busy schedule to grant The Wanderer a wide-ranging interview during a recent visit to the Shrine. Included among the topics…Continue Reading

By RAYMOND LEO CARDINAL BURKE (Editor’s Note: His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke delivered the address below at the 32nd Annual Church Teaches Forum, “The Message of Fatima: Peace for the World,” Galt House, Louisville, Ky., July 22, 2017. The address is reprinted here with the kind permission of Cardinal Burke. All rights reserved. This is part one of the…Continue Reading

Catechism

Today . . .

There’s nothing, it seems, that the abortion chain Planned Parenthood won’t sue over. On Thursday, affiliates of the abortion chain in seven states sued the Trump administration for cutting funding for their questionable teen pregnancy prevention programs. The Daily Nonpareil reports the lawsuits argue that the Trump administration wrongly cut their funding prematurely and without cause. Nine groups, including Planned Parenthood affiliates in Washington, Iowa, North Carolina, South C

CAMBRIDGE, England, February 15, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A respected Catholic historian and philosopher challenged Cardinal Blase Cupich during a lecture last week about Pope’ Francis so-called “revolution of mercy” that has caused what many are defending as a “paradigm shift” in Catholic practice. Professor John Rist, after listening to a February 9 lecture at Cambridge Universityin which Cardinal Cupich praised Pope Francis’ “paradigm shift” in Catholic practice, asked the Cardinal at the end of the lect

VIENNA, Austria, February 14, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Austria’s bishops, led by Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, are indignant over a retired bishop’s passionate defense of Catholic teaching in opposing Church “blessings” for homosexual unions. After Bishop Andreas Laun, the retired Auxiliary Bishop of Salzburg, Austria, published Monday his strong rebuke of the German bishops for proposing to bless homosexual couples, there has been an inten

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago is all for clarity. It has been a consistent theme, as when in September of 2017 he issued a decree banning guns in all parishes, schools and other facilities across the archdiocese “so there would be absolute clarity on our position.” His official statement put “clarity” in italics. When he was bishop of Rapid City, he called for “civility and clarity” in discussing legislation that would limit abortion, but he…Continue Reading

BEIJING — A group of influential Catholics published an open letter Monday express their shock and disappointment at report that the Vatican could soon reach a deal with the Chinese government, warning that it could create a schism in the church in China. The Holy See has been in negotiations for several years with the Chinese Communist Party and is now belie

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Within a week of taking office on January 23, 2017, President Trump reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, now called the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, which bans U.S. funding for abortions overseas. The expanded policy prohibits $9 billion in U.S. taxpayer money from funding foreign organizations that perform or…Continue Reading

By HANNAH BROCKHAUS VATICAN CITY (CNA/EWTN News) — The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has approved the second miracle needed for the canonization of Blessed Pope Paul VI, allowing his canonization to take place, possibly later this year. According to Vatican Insider, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints approved the miracle by a…Continue Reading

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bimonthly] in Crisis. He is professor of political science and legal studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also cofounder and president of…Continue Reading

By LISA BOURNE (Editor’s Note: LifeSiteNews ran this story on February 5.) + + + A Catholic priest is calling on bishops to excommunicate the 14 Catholic-identifying U.S. senators who voted two weeks ago against banning late-term abortions. He is also calling on priests to deny the Catholic pro-abortion senators Holy Communion. “Today is the…Continue Reading

By JAMES LIKOUDIS The centuries-old theological debate concerning the existence of Limbo for unbaptized babies (the limbo puerorum as a state of natural happiness) led to the 2007 publication of the document The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized by the International Theological Commission (ITC). The commission concluded there are “serious…Continue Reading

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Our Catholic Faith (Section B of print edition)

By DON FIER For a variety of reasons (a defect of consent, a diriment impediment, or a defect of the required form), many supposed modern-day marriages entered into by Catholic persons are invalid from their origin in the eyes of God and the Church. However, as we saw last week, depending on the circumstances, the Church has procedures by which…Continue Reading

Q. Concerning what our Blessed Mother said in Fatima about the rosary, I am confused as to whether or not she meant us to meditate on the mysteries while we are praying the Hail Marys or whether she meant us to meditate on the mysteries right before we say the Hail Marys. The consensus seems to be that we are…Continue Reading

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Second Sunday Of Lent Readings: Gen. 22:1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18 Romans 8:31b-34 Mark 9:2-10 In the first reading today we hear about Abraham’s nearly incomprehensible act of faith and love for God shown in his willingness to sacrifice his own son. We have to be careful not to read this in a vacuum. This test, which…Continue Reading

By ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI (Wanderer Editor’s Note: Catholic News Agency on February 3 published a commentary concerning a 1989 Vatican response to dissent against Humanae Vitae. Below is an excerpted version of that commentary. Following that, we reprint the full text of the 1989 Vatican response, which, as the CNA commentary explains, is now available on the Vatican’s website. Please also…Continue Reading

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK A joke sometimes recounted among clergy goes along these lines: Someone greets a wise old priest by asking, “What’s new?”, and he responds, sagely, “Christ is risen!” The humor here is less about what’s new than about the fact that everything, other than the only true revolution of Christ’s Incarnation and triumph over death, is…Continue Reading

By CAROLE BRESLIN Great sinners make great saints. It takes a strong-willed child to become a saint. These are statements which would easily fit saints such as Mary Magdalene and St. Augustine. In the thirteenth century, a young lady free in spirit and strong in will led such a life that she was essentially driven from her home village, but…Continue Reading

By CAROLE BRESLIN In the lives of the saints one thing is very common: They have such a strong desire to do God’s will that nothing will hinder their work. Many saints, despite illness, weak health, or many other obstacles achieved their goals. Frequently the amount of work accomplished by such individuals seems humanly impossible — and, of course, it…Continue Reading